


Tale As Old As Time

by cruisedirector



Category: Beauty and the Beast (1991), Beauty and the Beast - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Ficlet, Fractured Fairy Tale, Loss of Virginity, Marriage, POV Third Person Limited, Princes & Princesses, Servants, Sexual Incompatibility, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-17
Updated: 2017-03-17
Packaged: 2018-10-06 09:30:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10331612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cruisedirector/pseuds/cruisedirector
Summary: It's not a very happy fairy tale.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Because I really hate Disney's _Beauty and the Beast_ and all the ads for the live action remake are giving me issues.

It isn't that he means to behave like a monster. It's just that behaving like a monster is all he's known for so long, and really, what have been the consequences -- more unhappiness than if he'd been a polite Beast, cowering quietly in his castle instead of stomping and roaring his way through it? No, behaving like a monster was often the only consolation he could find. And since the witch saw fit to punish his entire staff along with him, and they went on serving him, he doesn't expect consequences when he does behave like a monster. He gets some snarky comments from Lumiere, to be sure, some tears from Chip, sometimes a kindly lecture from kindly Mrs. Potts. But they don't seem any more likely to abandon him now than they did when they were all clocks and brooms and armoires. Where can they go, without work references from him, and with a wood full of hungry wolves between themselves and their freedom? They will all serve him for the rest of their days.

As for Belle, it should be easy to be kind, for she is warm and witty when she has seen her father happy or when she's glowing from a story from the library about distant cities and benevolent rulers. But even in a palace, it's a provincial life, for she will never see such places. Whether a Beast or a Prince, her husband can't travel far, can't leave his lands unprotected...not with a half dozen would-be Gastons eager to prove to a village full of simpering young women and curvy matrons that they should have coveted someone besides that muscled savage. Generous gifts and bountiful festivals will not enough to keep everyone in the village happy. One day they will come with their pitchforks, not to kill the Beast, but because there will be no Beast to slay them when they take what they want.

As for Belle, it should be easy to be kind, but she is strong-willed and stubborn and he is used to having his way. She was raised in a world where men are either Beasts or Princes, and a Prince should know not to interrupt her when she's reading or kiss her neck when she's sleepy or slide a hand up her thigh when she dances with him, even though she is his wife now. He has tried to obliterate the memory of their wedding night, when no amount of tender care could quiet her terror before or her pain during the act that sealed their vows. He doesn't mean to be rough, but none of the books in his library offer proper instruction and he would not demean his wife by asking a serving girl for advice. Now, any time he suggests loving her with his body, whether by word or touch or an hour of romantic poetry, she gazes at him as if he is sprouting fur and horns, or, worse, as if he has become the leering, brutish Gaston.

It isn't that he means to behave like a monster. He tries to be kind to the people who fetch his clothes and wash his floors, who pour his tea and dust his china, singing of their satisfaction at pleasing those they serve, though now he can smash a plate or tear a curtain without fearing he's damaging someone who shares his curse. He cares for his dogs and cats, he keeps the cows and goats well fed, he permits no hunting save what is necessary for food and furs. Yet sometimes he feels as much a prisoner as he did when he lived in the body of a Beast, and when he looks at Belle, he sees that her beauty and grace have offered her no more freedom than the life she might have had in the town, buying bread, weaving cloth, raising children with a husband she might never have loved in the same way he loved her. Perhaps she would have been happier if the Beast and Gaston had both died in the struggle, leaving her a library and a life of dreams of a Prince, all the more enviable for never coming true.


End file.
